


Behind Her Eyes

by Thia (Jennaria)



Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:05:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennaria/pseuds/Thia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raoul has won his Christine away from the monster.  They should be happy now...shouldn't they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind Her Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Porn Battle, prompt of 'Raoul/Christine, fantasy,' except I missed the deadline. Probably just as well, given I'm not sure this is what the original prompter would've wanted. :rueful: Mostly musical canon, with bits of book canon.

On their wedding night, Christine lies there and stares up at him with blank, unseeing eyes. Raoul leans down and kisses her tentatively. Nothing. It's as if she were dead. Only the warmth of her breath on his lips assures him that she is, indeed, still living.

He sits up and frowns off at the wall. He could just take her, certainly, but if he wanted a woman who would only lie there and _endure_ him, he would have chosen some proper debutante, not an opera singer. He did not free this woman from the clutches of a monster only to make her unhappy himself. "Christine?" His voice almost quavers, and it's only through an effort of will that he doesn't sound like the uncertain boy he feels.

She blinks, and turns to her head to look at him. "Raoul?"

"What do you want?"

"I don't understand."

Perhaps she doesn't, but at least there's something like life in those eyes again. Raoul reaches up and brushes the backs of his fingers down the side of her cheek. "Did you ever -- do you --" An opera singer, he reminds himself firmly. The girl he fell in love with, years ago, would have been innocent of any such knowledge, but surely no one could sing for her living at the Opera and not learn what went on between a man and a woman. "Do you know what --"

An actual smile appears on her face, faint but there, and she reaches up to stop his stumbling attempts at a question with her fingers against his mouth. "Madame Giry told me." He must have looked startled, because the smile grows wider, and she shrugs. "She tells every new girl. She says it's only wise."

Raoul tries to imagine what exactly the extremely starched-looking Mme. Giry had told his sweet innocent Christine. "Ah," he says weakly. "I see." Christine is still looking at him, eyebrows raised in inquiry, but he can't think of anything to say. _He_ learned the Facts of Life from a combination of his elder brother and a few books he'd read while still at school, which only sometimes made sense.

Christine's smile fades. "It's all right," she says, as if she's the one reassuring him. She leans up from the bed and kisses him.

It's no more than the light brush of her lips against his, but Raoul can't resist. He bends closer, opening to her, asking for more. She's his wife -- his _wife_! -- and he wants his beloved wrapped in his arms as they learn these mysteries together.

For a moment, she freezes in apparent surprise. Then she relaxes again, and her mouth opens beneath his. With a feeling of triumph, Raoul settles back down beside her, and reaches up to tentatively tug at the laces of her nightgown. He's vaguely aware that perhaps he shouldn't ask this of her, that a properly-brought-up young woman would expect him to do nothing more than discreetly pull up her nightgown and pull down his pajama pants, but this is Christine. Surely it's not improper to want more. That monster saw more, didn't he?

Christine allows him to tug her laces undone, and undress her, so she lies in front of him clothed in nothing but her beautiful hair. Raoul kisses his way down along her creamy skin, and carefully, cautiously, touches the curves of her breasts, first with fingers, then with his lips. When he looks up, her eyes are closed again, and she's breathing more quickly.

He hesitates. He wants Christine to enjoy this. Somehow it's important. But he's all too aware that he doesn't know how to make sure of that. He has no experience to draw upon, and he doesn't have powers of, of _hypnosis_ like that monster did. He wonders if he should have gone back and tried to find those books he read.

Then Christine opens her eyes again, blank and unseeing. Raoul sits up, one hand on her hip, and sees her bite her lip. Not to stifle a moan, surely. He wasn't caressing her. More like she was keeping herself from saying something.

&gt;Raoul cups her breast and flicks his thumb over her nipple, and watches her eyes close again, and her teeth close on her lower lip even harder. There's a sick twist in his belly as he bends to lick at her again. Maybe he's wrong. He _won_. Christine is _his_. He wants her so badly that she has to want him back.

"Christine," he whispers, pleading, and nudges at her legs to part them.

"Please," she answers, and the only consolation he can take is that she doesn't say a name.

-end-


End file.
